A senior North Korean diplomat based in Cuba defected to South Korea in November, becoming the highest-ranking North Korean diplomat to escape to the South since 2016.
Without giving any further details, South Korea’s spy agency the National Intelligence Service confirmed an earlier report by the Chosun Ilbo newspaper, which said that a counsellor responsible for political affairs at the North Korean embassy in Cuba had defected.
Among Ri Il-kyu’s jobs at the embassy was to block North Korea’s rival South Korea and old ally Cuba from forging diplomatic ties, the newspaper reported citing an interview with Ri. In February, the two countries established diplomatic relations.
Details on North Koreans defections often take months to come to light, with defectors needing to be cleared by authorities and going through a course of education about South Korean society and systems.
Ri entered North Korea’s foreign ministry in 1999 and received a commendation from North Korean leader Kim Jong-un for successfully negotiating with Panama to lift the detention of a North Korean ship caught carrying arms from Cuba in 2013, Chosun said.
He told the newspaper he had decided to defect over disillusionment with the regime and unfair evaluation of his work.
“Every North Korean thinks at least once about living in South Korea. Disillusionment with the North Korean regime and a bleak future led me to consider defection,” he told the paper.
“In fact, North Koreans yearn for reunification even more than South Koreans. Everyone believes that reunification is the only way for their children to have a better future. Today, the Kim Jong-un regime has brutally extinguished even the slightest hope left among the people.”
He said he flew out of Cuba with his family but he did not elaborate further on ho